I went Free-to-Play with LotRO months ago. The wife has maintained her VIP account.

What caught my eye about the announcement was the pre-order perks (which were available immediately):

All three Rohirrim Style Mounts with a blanket & emblem in the colours of green, red and white

All three sets of matching cosmetic Rohirrim Style armour in the colours of green, red and white

The Mrs. was very much going to be riding in style. (She pre-ordered.) This is nice. Real nice. I buy sparkly star horses. To get the matching get-up to go along with some nice barding? Count me in. This alone is not having me pre-order the Legendary Edition however. (The Heroic Edition of the pre-order lets you pick one of the three colors.)

An in-game title – Guard of the Isen

This game has a lot of titles. I’m giving up some cool titles to have this one.

Access to the Path of the Fellowship Quest Packs including Trollshaws, Eregion, Lothlórien and Moria plus the Mirkwood Quest Pack as a special bonus

1,000 Turbine Points for use in the LOTRO Store

Okay, this is what got me. “Free-to-play” isn’t really. Unless you can still consider it “playing” when in a quest-driven MMORPG you can’t do the quests. Not if you don’t pay extra. When I was a VIP member I blew a lot of my Turbine points getting horses (and a ram) for my four characters. (Raising 4 gold cash seemed an insurmountable obstacle to horse riding. Turbine points for the win on that front.) So, when I went free-to-play I didn’t have a whole lot of Turbine points left for purchasing stuff like, oh, the darn quests. The quests packs you get with this pre-order, and then the expansion, will last me to the end of the game. Which is nice. The Moria quest pack is 595 turbine points, for example. Like I said, this quests packs included in the Legendary Edition are going to last me a long while.

Pre-Purchase Bonuses

A 25% XP Boost for all characters on your account that will last up to level 65

All three cosmetic cloaks that match the colour of your armour and mount

The cloak looks nice, does match the outfit and the barding. But the 25% XP boost till level 65? That’s real nice.

The wife has been soloing lately and managed to get to level 42 or so while I was stuck at 39. With the xp bonus, and some renewed vigor in the game, I’m now at level 42 to her 44. And we’re now questing up in overcast and foggy Forochel (a quest pack I’d purchased earlier).

So we’re back in LotRO again. On the path to level 45, on the road to the Mines of Moria, and now Isengard.